


Figuring It Out

by pipermca



Series: Alt Modes and Alchemy [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Awkward First Times, Dry(ish) Humping, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Messy, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Inexperience, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Unintentional Intercrural Sex (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipermca/pseuds/pipermca
Summary: After being raised in an oppressive culture that viewed interfacing as something done only between bonded partners, the only things Smokescreen knew about it were what he’d learned from hearsay and and from scandalous romance novels.But how hard could interfacing actually be?





	Figuring It Out

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens after the end of [Chapter 14 of A Bonding, a Coronation, and a Funeral](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16944429/chapters/42198671), after we "draw the curtains." (Or, rather, what happened when my muse was determined to write some smut but I was forcing it to finish the long fic I've been working on...)

No. Interfacing wasn’t anything like in the romance stories he’d read when he was younger. In some ways, it wasn't quite as dramatic as Smokescreen had been expecting. But in a lot of other ways, it was much better.

Smokescreen heard Halfsteel’s cooling fans spin a bit faster as he pulled their frames together, and he smiled. “I suppose this isn’t how those stories go... You know, in the romances.” He tipped a wing up as a question. “Did you ever read any of them?”

Halfsteel laughed. “I’m very familiar with them,” he said. “I can’t think of a noble who isn’t. I think I read every copy my eldest brother got from a friend, who got them from another friend...” He shook his helm. “All I know is that they were well-worn by the time I got my hands on them.”

“I wish I’d known that,” Smokescreen said, turning to grab fuel from the serving tray. “We could have been trading novels back and forth this whole time!” He grinned at Halfsteel. “Which was your favourite?” he asked, handing a cube to his friend. “I think the one I read the most was _The Thief and the Soldier_.”

“Oh, **that** one,” Halfsteel said, laughing into his cube, his door wings flicking about in the way they did when he was embarrassed. He followed Smokescreen to the couch and sat next to him. “I think I read our copy to shreds. Especially...” He flushed and ducked his helm, sipping at his fuel. “The scene in the armory.”

Smokescreen felt his core temperature tick upwards just thinking about that scene. “Yes! I think I had that scene memorized at one point.” He smiled, remembering the nights spent reading the scandalous romance novel, terrified that he’d be discovered but unable to put the story down. “I **might** have spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how they managed it, since it seemed like it would have been uncomfortable. But maybe I just don’t have a good grasp on...” He waved his hand vaguely between his frame and Halfsteel’s.

Halfsteel laughed again, looking more relaxed than he had a moment before. “Windkeeper – you know, my eldest brother – he found out I’d been reading those books, and he gave me some advice. For when I got bonded, and interfaced for the first time.” Halfsteel finished his cube and set it on the table beside him. “He said that the descriptions of interfacing in those books was unrealistic and that you shouldn’t read them as instruction guides. He said that real interfacing was a lot less graceful.” Halfsteel laughed again and his door wings fluttered. “And he said that, the first time, if one of you doesn’t get a door wing to the face, it’s a miracle.”

Smokescreen grinned, half distracted by how adorable Halfsteel looked when he was flustered. “So, if they aren’t supposed to be instruction guides, I suppose that means we have to figure it out on our own.”

Halfsteel slid closer to Smokescreen on the couch. “I **do** have five older brothers, you know, and four of them are bonded. They talk. So I’ve picked up a few tips, I think.” He leaned forward until his chevron rested again Smokescreen’s. “And I think that between the two of us, we can give ourselves a rudimentary education in interfacing.” He grabbed at Smokescreen’s hand and pulled it up against his chest. Smokescreen could feel Halfsteel’s spark thrumming rapidly behind his plating. “If you want to.”

Smokescreen’s ventilations caught as Halfsteel’s other hand settled on his thigh, and he felt the charge that had been building in his array surge again. “I think I’m ready to see if we can,” Smokescreen said, working hard to keep his voice steady. “If you are.”

Instead of answering him verbally, Halfsteel kissed him for the fourth time that evening. 

Smokescreen leaned back on the couch and closed his optics, trying to focus his attention on Halfsteel’s lips. But it was hard to maintain that focus. Halfsteel’s hands roamed over Smokescreen’s frame, tracing transformation seams and joints in his armor, creating one distraction after another. When Halfsteel dug his digits into the lower hinge of Smokescreen’s left door wing, a jolt of charge ran straight to his array, and strangled noise escaped from Smokescreen’s vocalizer. 

The heat and pressure that had been building behind his interface panel was somewhat relieved when his panel transformed aside, and his spike sprung free of its housing. “Steel,” Smokescreen groaned when Halfsteel had stopped kissing him.

Silence.

Smokescreen opened his optics to see Halfsteel looking at his spike, hesitating. 

Even with his spike throbbing for attention between them, Smokescreen matched Halfsteel’s pause. He peered up into those gorgeous golden optics, as if he could see the cause of the noble’s hesitation. Yes, they’d kissed. Yes, they’d talked about interfacing. But Smokescreen wanted to be absolutely sure. Once they did this, there was no undoing it.

The most important thing to him in that moment was to make absolutely sure that Halfsteel wanted this as much as he did.

“Tell me now if you don’t want this.” Smokescreen’s words sounded strained, with static at its edges, as he struggled to keep his vocalizer steady.

Smokescreen’s words seemed to jolt Halfsteel out of whatever loop his processor had been caught in. His optics brightening, Halfsteel nodded. “Of course I want this,” Halfsteel said. He put a warm hand around Smokescreen’s spike, and Smokescreen whimpered as the light touch sent another jolt of charge through his array. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Then Halfsteel put both arms around Smokescreen and flung himself backwards, pulling Smokescreen down on top of him on the couch. 

Smokescreen tipped over and landed awkwardly, trying not to crush Halfsteel under him, and braced himself on his forearms. As he shifted his legs he felt the head of his spike rub through something hot and wet, and Smokescreen’s engine coughed as he realized Halfsteel’s panel was open...

Halfsteel’s panel was open and the head of Smokescreen’s spike was rubbing through the hot, wet folds at the entrance of Halfsteel’s valve.

It suddenly felt as though every sensor in Smokescreen’s frame had been rerouted to run through his spike. Smokescreen’s hips juddered forward, and the shaft of his spike was engulfed in that hot wetness. Halfsteel arched upwards into him. “Smokey!” he gasped, static lacing his words.

A dim part of Smokescreen’s processor was telling him that this didn’t feel like how it usually did when he self-serviced. The bottom of his spike was slicked with every thrust, each motion drawing a small mewl from Halfsteel’s vocalizer. There was pressure on his spike, but not what he’d expected to feel of the inside of a valve: it felt looser somehow, less confining than even his own fist.

But did it matter? All of the excitement and anticipation that had been building in him ever since his morning meetings, when Halfsteel’s leg had been pressed against his under the table, was reverberating through his frame as a rising charge. Smokescreen leaned down, sloppily catching Halfsteel’s lips with his, and moaned as he felt Halfsteel’s digits digging into the hinges of his door wings.

Halfsteel’s hips flinched upwards as Smokescreen thrust again, and the pressure on Smokescreen’s spike suddenly increased and -

The cresting charge came suddenly, blanking out Smokescreen’s optics and audials for a moment. His hips jerks spasmodically, uncontrolled by him, and he knew he was cursing and shuddering in Halfsteel’s grasp. When his hearing returned, he heard his fans roaring at top speed, and he momentarily collapsed on top of Halfsteel.

“Frag,” he muttered. When he raised his helm to look at Halfsteel, the noble was smiling, but there was a confused look about his optics. “I... Steel, are you...”

“I’m fine,” Halfsteel said, reaching up behind Smokescreen’s helm and pulling him down into a kiss. Then he tipped his own helm back and kissed Smokescreen’s nasal ridge, then his chevron. Smokescreen shivered at the light touch. “That was... fine.”

Smokescreen frowned slightly. Fine? Fine is what you called a cup of energon tea. A seat offered for a meeting was fine. He wasn’t sure what Halfsteel had felt, but Smokescreen knew that what he’d felt had been more than ‘fine.’

At Smokescreen’s frown, Halfsteel patted his shoulder and shifted. “It’s a learning experience, remember?” he said, then his own face shifted, the corners of his mouth curving downwards slightly into a grimace. “But... one of my wings is twisted...”

“Oh!” Smokescreen pushed himself up with his arms so that he wasn’t laying so solidly on Halfsteel. As soon as he moved, he felt a wet warmth on his abdomen. When he’d sat up completely, he saw a sticky mess of transfluid spattered and smeared across Halfsteel’s abdomen and chest. “Um...” he said. He knew interfacing was messy, but he’d thought that it would at least be contained to –

Even as the thoughts were forming in his processor, he suddenly realized what had happened. Instead of sliding his spike into Halfsteel’s valve, he’d just been rubbing it along the outside folds. How could he not have realized it? It had felt good, but...

 _Halfsteel must think I’m an idiot_ , Smokescreen thought.

Smokescreen looked up at Halfsteel, and saw that the noble had reached the same conclusion that Smokescreen had. Halfsteel’s face broke into a smile then, and a laugh. 

“I didn’t think it felt right,” Smokescreen muttered as he felt a flush starting on his face plates. He rubbed at his own abdominal plating, where more transfluid had been smeared. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Smokey,” Halfsteel said, rolling to his knees and flinging his arms around Smokescreen’s neck. He pulled in him for another kiss, and Smokescreen could feel the noble’s smile even as he kissed him. “That’s kind of a relief, you know,” Halfsteel said with a soft giggle. “I mean, I didn’t think your equipment had looked that small.”

Smokescreen had to laugh at that. “I was worried,” he said. “I mean, ‘fine’ didn’t really seem to gel with how it felt to me.”

“It felt good!” Halfsteel said. “Every time you moved I felt... something. It just wasn’t like how I’d imagined, you know?” He shrugged. “We’ll just have to try again.”

Smokescreen looked down and saw that his own spike had retreated back into its housing. Halfsteel’s panel was still open, but his spike housing was closed. Smokescreen hesitantly laid his hand on it: it was hot under his digits, and Halfsteel whimpered slightly. Smokescreen wondered how many overrides Halfsteel had been issuing to keep the housing closed. “How do you feel about switching it up?” Smokescreen asked. 

Under Smokescreen’s digits, Halfsteel’s spike housing irised open and his spike pressurized. It was green and streaked with silver, like his plating, and he whimpered again as Smokescreen folded his hand around it.

Then Halfsteel’s hand snapped out, grapping Smokescreen by the wrist. “I think we’ll be more comfortable – and have more room – in the berth,” Halfsteel said, lilting his sentence like a question but somehow managing to make it sound like an order.

Smokescreen nodded readily, already seeing the wisdom in Halfsteel’s suggestion. He let go of Halfsteel’s spike (making note of the whine of the noble’s fans when he did so) and pushed himself to his pedes. “I’ll just grab a chamois to deal with this,” he said, gesturing at the fluid still coating their plating.

When Smokescreen entered the berthroom with a cleaning cloth wetted with warm solvent, Halfsteel was sitting cross-legged on the berth. He’d run his digits through the transfluid on his belly and was rubbing it between his digits thoughtfully. His other hand gently stroked his spike, almost absent-mindedly. He looked up when Smokescreen came in, and smiled.

“Let me get that off of you,” Smokescreen said, sitting on the berth next to the noble. When Halfsteel made a noise of disagreement and tried to take the cloth, Smokescreen pulled it away and tutted. “This mess is really my fault. Let me clean you up a bit.”

“All right.” Halfsteel unfolded himself and lay back on the berth, resting his upper body on the cushions designed to support door wings. His spike pointed upwards, bobbing slightly as Halfsteel arranged himself. “But it doesn’t have to be perfect. I can run myself through the wash rack later if I have to.”

Kneeling next to Halfsteel, Smokescreen ran the cloth down Halfsteel’s abdomen, wiping up the worst of the smears. “I just don’t want to leave you all sticky.” He heard Halfsteel’s fans spin up again as his hand wiped further down his belly towards Halfsteel’s spike. Smokescreen rubbed at a spot just above Halfsteel’s pelvic plating, and bit his lips to hide the smile when he felt Halfsteel’s hips jerk upwards.

When he started to dip the cloth into the gap in Halfsteel’s hip plating, the noble grabbed at his wrist again. “That’s enough,” he said, his voice sounding thin. Halfsteel pulled him, encouraging Smokescreen forward to straddle his waist. “Let’s try like this. And... We can see what we’re doing this way,” he added with a smile, gripping his own spike in one hand and sliding his other between Smokescreen’s legs.

At the first touch of Halfsteel’s digits, Smokescreen whimpered. The folds of his own valve had grown damp, unnoticed until the fluid on his abdomen had started drying. At the barest touch of Halfsteel’s digits, Smokescreen felt a deep throb start within his array. When the tip of Halfsteel’s digit grazed his anterior node, he felt a zing of charge rocket straight up his back. “Steel!” he gasped, arching his back into the touch.

The motion of the digits stopped, and when Smokescreen looked down he saw Halfsteel smiling up at him. The noble’s optics flicked down, and Smokescreen felt another touch against his outer node, more blunt and warm than Halfsteel’s digits had been. 

Looking down, he saw Halfsteel sliding the tip of his spike against the front outer edge of Smokescreen’s valve. When he did it again, Smokescreen’s engine whined at the teasing touch. 

“This time,” Smokescreen said, lifting himself on his knees, “we’ll make sure we don’t miss, right?”

Halfsteel looked up at Smokescreen, his golden optics filled with an adoration that made Smokescreen’s engine hitch even as it revved higher. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Leaning back and bracing himself with a hand on Halfsteel’s knee, Smokescreen lowered himself onto Halfsteel’s spike. He’d played with his own spike before, of course, always sure to use a chamois or to do it in the wash rack to hide the evidence from his attendants. But he’d always preferred playing with his valve. He’d always been frustrated that he could feel it was designed for something larger than his digits, something more than the slim objects he’d found to use on himself. 

But this... This was perfect.

He felt a pleasant stretch as he lowered himself downwards, Halfsteel’s spike opening him wide but just shy of pain. But after that stretch came the fullness. The sensation of being wholly and completely filled, perfectly fitting into the channel inside him, momentarily blanked his processor. When he onlined his optics again (when had he turned them off?) he stared down at Halfsteel’s face.

The noble’s jaw had gone slack, but his mouth gaped open into a happy smile. As Smokescreen sank down completely onto his spike, Halfsteel’s helm rocked back slightly and a low groan escaped his vocalizer. “Smokey... Oh, Primus, you feel amazing,” Halfsteel said, his voice low and gravelly as if it was underpowered.

Smokescreen had to agree with Halfsteel, but he didn’t trust his vocalizer to work. So instead he leaned forward, staring down at the noble’s face, and lifted his hips upwards to slide the spike out of his valve... Then lowered himself onto it again.

Halfsteel gripped Smokescreen’s hips tightly and moaned again. “Shards!” he hissed, moving his hips in time with Smokescreen’s.

Tipping his hips forward, Smokescreen could feel the front of Halfsteel’s spike rubbing against his anterior node, each long motion sending a quake through his frame. Tipping his hips backwards, Smokescreen could feel the head of the spike hitting something deep inside him that made him arch backwards, seeking more pressure and more... More... More **something**. 

Yeah. Smokescreen could totally see why so many books had been written about this... And perhaps why the Temple would want to keep nobles from wanting to do this outside of a bond. How did commoners ever get **anything** done when they could be doing **this** all the time?

The friction and the alternating sensations were just starting to build Smokescreen’s charge into something new, something that felt like sparks were going to erupt from every seam in his armor, when Halfsteel’s grip on his hips tightened, and the noble gasped something unintelligible. His hips twitched upwards, once, twice, and Smokescreen felt a sharp crackling sensation across his armor as Halfsteel’s charge crested before grounding out into the berth. 

Then Halfsteel’s frame slumped back into the cushions, his joints going lax, and his optics onlined again to look up at Smokescreen. “That was...” He cycled his optics as if to clear them, and he smiled. “Primus, Smokey, you’re so handsome.”

His frame still shivering with charge, Smokescreen leaned down to kiss Halfsteel, sliding his hips up and down, trying to find that knife’s edge he had been perched on just a moment before. But it was gone. In its place was a sopping heat, his valve feeling more slippery than it had a klik before. Halfsteel’s spike slowly depressurized in his valve, until Smokescreen felt it slide out and fall against his inner thigh wetly.

Smokescreen knew that Halfsteel’s compliment didn’t have the expected effect when Halfsteel’s satisfied smile dropped from his face a moment after he spoke. “So we hit the mark that time, but now you’re still charged up,” Halfsteel said, his thumbs rubbing little circles on Smokescreen’s hips. His tone was slightly sour.

“They make this sound so easy in the novels,” Smokescreen said, slumping down off of Halfsteel’s frame. Something oozed out of his valve as he moved, and he realized that it was Halfsteel’s transfluid. In his valve. He’d just fragged his best friend and he was dripping with his transfluid. 

Smokescreen’s fans roared as a fresh rush of charge buzzed through his lines.

He groaned slightly as his spike bumped against Halfsteel’s hip. When had his spike repressurized? He wasn’t sure, but now it throbbed with the charge still zinging through his frame. He grabbed it tightly in his hand, squeezing it to try to relieve some of the ache. “It’s all right,” he gasped. “I can...” Smokescreen wasn’t sure how he would finish that sentence, but he was fairly sure the solution to his problem involved his spike and his own digits.

Halfsteel’s hand came to rest on Smokescreen’s, wrapping around his digits where they curled around the shaft of his spike. “Did you ever read _Sky of Stars_?” Halfsteel asked quietly, the tips of his digits slipping between Smokescreen’s, drawing a gasp from the prince. “Specifically, the scene in the prince’s berthroom?” 

Smokescreen thought for a moment. He was fairly sure that was a novel that Prince Silverstreak had loaned him (“I want this back later!” his brother had insisted, before vanishing from his life, seemingly forever). And he was pretty sure that he remembered the scene. A tiny whimper escaped his vocalizer before he could control it. “I think so,” he whispered.

Halfsteel sat up, drawing Smokescreen up with him. “Here,” he said, pulling Smokescreen to the edge of the berth. “Here. Sit on the edge, with your legs apart...”

As Halfsteel knelt before him, Smokescreen’s engine whined louder. “Steel,” he said, his processor finally catching up with what Halfsteel was intending. “Steel, you don’t have to do this for me.”

Looking up at Smokescreen with bright optics, Halfsteel smiled. His door wings fluttered behind him as he said, “But I want to, Your Highness,” he said, his voice low with want. He slid his hands up Smokescreen’s thighs, pulling them wider. “It would be my honour.” 

Then he leaned forward and licked up the length of Smokescreen’s throbbing spike.

Smokescreen almost shouted. His charge suddenly ratcheted up again even higher than it had been before, and he grabbed at Halfsteel’s helm. Halfsteel grinned up at him for a moment before he engulfed his spike with his mouth.

Smokescreen’s vision went pixilated. Before, when he’d been unknowingly rubbing just the outside of Halfsteel’s valve with his spike, the sensation he’d felt had been of heat, and dampness. But this... This was **hot** and **wet** , and **in motion** , and oh slag that was Halfsteel’s glossa sliding up the length of his spike, and the barest brush of dentae against the sensitive mesh of his spike and frag Steel, frag that feels so good oh Primus please oh Primus do that again please it’s –

The hot, wet, amazing mouth pulled back, slipping off of his spike. He heard a coughing noise, and felt hands pulling at his, and he realized he’d grabbed Halfsteel’s helm in his hands and had been thrusting... Thrusting into his friend’s intake. Smokescreen cycled his optics and saw Halfsteel wiping at his mouth, and the image acted like a grounding wire had been connected to his frame. “Oh, slag, Steel, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I? I just... It was just so...”

Halfsteel was shaking his helm, and his smile was back. “We’re just figuring this out, right?” he said. He wrapped his hand around the base of Smokescreen’s spike and licked the tip, deliberately keeping optical contact with Smokescreen. He smiled when he heard Smokescreen’s fan speed tick upwards again. “Now we both know.” He lowered his door wings deferently. “And... You should have seen your face, Smokey,” he murmured. “It was gorgeous.”

And then he lowered his lips to Smokescreen’s spike again.

This time, they were both conscious of their movements. Halfsteel kept his hand around the base of Smokescreen’s spike so that he couldn’t thrust too deeply, and Smokescreen fought to keep his optics online, looking down at Halfsteel as he sucked his spike. And when Smokescreen’s charge finally crested, that ball of need bursting from his frame through his array in an explosion that left his vision and hearing lost in static for a moment, Halfsteel swallowed two of the spurts that erupted. But the next three were painted across his face, one trailing across his nasal ridge like a swipe of war paint.

When Smokescreen recovered his bearings, Halfsteel was still kneeling at his pedes. The noble, his optics overbright and his face spattered with transfluid, gazed up at Smokescreen.

All Smokescreen could see was love in his friend’s optics.

“Steel,” Smokescreen murmured, taking Halfsteel’s helm between his hands. He bent over, resting his chevron against Halfsteel’s, and looked into those clear golden pools that had always meant confidant and friend to him. “Steel, that was amazing.” He kissed Halfsteel’s nasal ridge, then his lips, trying to say with a kiss what he was attempting to put into words. “You’re amazing. I can’t even tell you how much you mean to me.”

At Smokescreen’s words, Halfsteel’s face broke into a smile. “I think I already know... And it humbles me,” he said. He rose on his knees so he could wrap his arms around Smokescreen waist, and kissed him again. When he pulled back, he rubbed his nasal ridge against Smokescreen’s. “And you mean the world to me, Smokey.”

Before Smokescreen could say anything in reply, Halfsteel paused and leaned backwards. Then he laughed.

“What?” Smokescreen asked with a smile. “What’s so funny?”

Halfsteel reached up and wiped a digit across Smokescreen’s face. He held it up to show Smokescreen the smear of transfluid he’d collected. “Maybe we should both spend some time cleaning up,” he said, gesturing at the fluid now drying on Smokescreen’s abdomen from earlier.

With a grin, Smokescreen stood and pulled Halfsteel up beside him. “That’s definitely something they never mentioned in the romances,” he said.

They both laughed all the way into the wash rack.


End file.
